


Hot Blood

by Archedes



Series: ash gray [3]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Battlefield Flirting, Established Relationship, M/M, Post-Recall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-10
Updated: 2017-02-10
Packaged: 2018-09-23 09:14:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9649352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Archedes/pseuds/Archedes
Summary: Reluctantly, he shakes his head. “The air isn’t good here. Besides…” he trails off, noting how carefully McCree is watching him. Like he doesn’t want to miss a thing. “I wouldn’t be able to keep my hands off of you otherwise.”





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [schwapocalypse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/schwapocalypse/gifts).



> happy vday terry. here's some obnoxious battlefield flirting.

Genji remembers coming here once or twice in the past, on vacation with his family. A forest of whitewashed stone buildings framed by a terrifically blue ocean. The sea breeze here—he recalls—is more pleasant than many places he had gone in his youth. Today, however, Ilios is on fire, and the ocean is obscured by thick gray clouds that stifle the air and destroy visibility. Crouched behind a broken wall—white smudged black and red—Genji marvels at how quickly they had all been put back out on the frontlines after answering the recall. Six months back, and it had already become routine again. Talon had time to swell its forces. Overwatch did not.

McCree is hunkered down to his right, back braced against the crumbling stone cover while he reloads. Peacekeeper wears its age poorly, and the revolving mechanism sticks every time McCree tries to pop it in or out. Even now, he’s struggling to get it to click in properly. In the distance—but still too close—something detonates, and the ground bucks beneath them. Genji throws out a hand to stabilize himself. McCree lurches forward, his hat falling off his head while his lips form a curse that Genji cannot hear. A nearby lattice explodes into jagged blue splinters; some of it comes their way, dusting them in bits of wood and paint chips.

Genji grabs the hat and sets it back onto McCree’s head—his hair is chalky with soot and detritus. He quirks a smile in return, opens his mouth to say something as Genji’s sensors blare. Incoming heavy artillery fire. He throws himself onto McCree, tackling him flat on his back behind their cover while the building in front of them shudders, implodes, spitting rubble out at them as the shell blows through it. Genji can feel it bouncing off his exoskeleton, the impact reverberating through him to the point where he needs to clench his jaw to keep his teeth from chattering. McCree’s breathing stutters against his throat where his head is tucked.

Several minutes pass before Genji tries to move, debris clattering off his back as he sits up. He assesses himself: auditory systems temporarily shut down in anticipation of impact, rebooting. Minor dent on his outer spinal casing. Left peripheral sensor cracked, giving erratic feedback. For the moment, their area of the battlefield is still, the bulk of Talon’s forces having moved on. Below him, McCree stares up, doe-eyed, mouth still tugged up in that small half smile of his. Genji doesn’t need to be able to hear him to know the tone he takes when he speaks. _Honey_ , Genji reads his lips, _I’m flattered, but this ain’t really the time._

Genji grins behind his visor, despite himself, before standing up and offering a hand. He gets auditory back in time to hear McCree’s thanks as he digs a plug out of his ear. “Are you injured?” Genji asks, reaching out to brush a bit of white soot from McCree’s cheek. That earns him another doe-eyed smile.

“I’m fine.”

“You are,” Genji agrees.

“Yeah?” McCree laughs. He is covered in dust and grit (and Genji imagines he looks similarly filthy), with dried blood from a prior skirmish dotting his chest plate. Genji adjusts his hat by the brim, straightening it.

“If the recall goes bad, you could try out being an underwear model,” Genji suggests, perfectly serious.

“Nah. I reckon you’ve long since had your fill of underwear models.”

“You _are_ the first cowboy I’ve been with.”

McCree laughs again, though this time it breaks off in a rough, dry cough. He braces himself against Genji’s shoulder, wheezing. Gunfire booms from down the block, and they both turn in unison toward the sound. McCree quiets himself, slipping his serape up over his mouth and nose. His fingers flex against Genji’s suit—where the armor meets the synthetic flesh of his neck, where Genji can feel it in a way that’s almost like it was before. Gingerly, he takes McCree’s hand in his own and takes it from his shoulder, holding it for a moment before letting go.

McCree clears his throat. “The mission. Let’s get ‘er done. I can’t breathe for shit out here.” He double-checks Peacekeeper before nodding, and the two of them head down the street.

 

—

 

Shuriken slip up between his fingers, and he takes a brief moment to center himself, hand drawn in front of him. The Talon operative some twenty-five meters in front of him hoists up his gun and aims down the sights. Lightning-fast, Genji thrusts his hand out, his interface tracking the shuriken as they move and lodge themselves in the gap between the man’s body armor and helmet. He drops the rifle, clutching at his spurting throat as he stumbles back behind cover and out of sight. Two centimeters off target. He makes adjustments.

McCree whistles appreciatively. “Sweetheart, you really are somethin’ else.” On the other size of the plaza, an enemy soldier rolls out of cover and takes aim, RPG resting heavily on his shoulder. McCree fires twice. The man falls face-first, both knees blown out. It doesn’t take long for one of the posted up snipers to eye him and finish him off. “Tell you what, I _did_ miss having army boys backing us up. Not that we got much of that in Blackwatch.”

McCree tips up the brim of his hat with his revolver, grinning wildly. “Something else?” Genji asks innocently. “What do you mean?”

He doesn’t fool McCree for a moment—can see it in the fond way he purses his lips—but he plays along regardless. “You ain’t lost your touch. Still sharp as a whip.” He puts his hand over his chest and winks. “You’re a bit gentler on my poor ol’ heart this time around, though.”

“I’ve developed a soft spot for men who can wear novelty belt buckles without shame,” Genji admits, and McCree’s laughter comes easily.

A door behind them bursts open, and three men rush out into the alley at their rear. One of them unhooks something from his belt—EMP grenade, Genji recognizes after a second. He pulls out the pin and winds up.

“You’re smirkin’ at me under there, ain’tcha?” McCree asks without missing a beat, flicking a flashbang out of a holster and tossing it underhand. Genji rushes forward in the confusion, shouldering the man with the grenade and sending him crashing into the side of the building.

Quickly, he grabs the EMP and flings it off the cliff side. Behind him, he can hear McCree fan the hammer. Before his soldier can recover, Genji has his wakizashi unsheathed and buried up to the hilt in his stomach. Blood bubbles up from his mouth, and he groans wetly when Genji pulls the blade out. He lets him fall to the ground, and he turns in time to see McCree rear back and punch one of the men square in the face—his prosthetic easily smashing through the helmet (blood gushing out between the shattered plastic), his head smashing against the stone wall hard enough crack it. When McCree withdraws, the Talon operative slides down heavily and does not get back up.

“Yeah,” Genji breathes, eyeing the blood dripping off of McCree’s metal fingers.

“Wish I could see it.”

Reluctantly, he shakes his head. “The air isn’t good here. Besides…” he trails off, noting how carefully McCree is watching him. Like he doesn’t want to miss a thing. “I wouldn’t be able to keep my hands off of you otherwise.”

McCree beams as he hooks his thumbs into his pants, sidling over to Genji—who can predict what he’s going to do as easily as if he had orchestrated it himself. Standing in front of him, McCree leans down and presses his lips against Genji’s helmet, just above the green slit in the visor. Genji cannot feel the kiss, but the affect it has on him remains the same. He gets an arm around McCree and pulls him flush against himself, external sensors giving off dull pings as they pick up on his body heat. McCree runs hot—something Genji remembers learning early on into their relationship, back before his new body was truly his own.

The shooting in the plaza picks up again, and they pull away from each other. Peacekeeper sticks when McCree tries to reload it, and Genji idly cleans his wakizashi off on one of the corpses before sliding it back into its sheath. “You can tell me more about all that later,” McCree says, struggling with his gun. When it finally clicks into place, they move.

One of the plaza buildings has been newly vacated; inside they find remnants of Talon’s hasty retreat in the form of bagged bodies and torn wires, electric lanterns and forgotten canteens. Though they fight on, their ranks seem to be shattered—“Which’ll either make them easy pickings or a helluva lot more dangerous,” McCree mutters, peeking furtively out from one of the doorways.

“Talon has cut its losses before and left men behind. Perhaps they’ll surrender.” Genji has a wry smile as he says it, and he glances outside to see the lattice on the far side has been blown out where faint thermal signatures huddle together. McCree barks out a laugh.

The remnants of the Talon regiment, as it turns out, are easily routed. Genji is able to get behind them via the rooftops, and from there he funnels them towards McCree who picks them off two by two while Genji cleans house behind enemy lines. Occasionally one of the mounted army snipers interferes, and McCree mutters a low curse about wasting bullets as he shoots a man who’s already had his head blown open.

They reconvene in the recaptured plaza, and McCree touches bases with Winston. Genji idly watches the snipers as they come down from their posts, clapping each other on the shoulder, giddy from the victory. In another part of the city, he can imagine Lena with a similar disposition. He finds it all rather pointless, feels nothing about having successfully pushed back Talon. Old feelings from Blackwatch, already settling back in. Before he can think further on it, Genji wanders over to McCree. He disconnects from the comm and fixes Genji with a broad smile. Full face, genuine. More for Genji than in response to their win, that much he can tell.

“I’m surprised we completed this mission without you sustaining a serious injury,” Genji comments, fingers finding their way to McCree’s left shoulder where he knows there is a large, ugly scar from a past op. He presses there lightly, feeling the edge where his armor ends and he begins. The sensitive receptors on the pads of his fingers can almost feel the texture of his serape.

McCree lifts his hand and holds Genji’s there, his smile unfaltering. “Haven’t died yet. Besides, scars are sexy.”

Genji hums, deigning not to play along with him just yet. Instead, his other hand presses against McCree’s abdomen, laying flat against his body armor. “Even the one from when your appendix was removed?”

“Especially that one, darlin’. You disagree?”

“No. I would be the last person to scold you for scars.” He tilts his head up at McCree, prodding his shoulder again lightly before pulling his hands away.

“It would just be cruel, seein’ as yours are the best.” When McCree says it, he has that doe-eyed expression again, painfully fond. It causes Genji to hesitate, and he wonders if he is grateful or sorry to have his visor on. He is still learning how to react to McCree’s moments of warm sincerity.

Having no words, he merely stretches up, hands on McCree’s shoulders to steady himself, and presses his face into McCree’s neck. The closest he can get to a kiss until they return to Gibraltar; all the same, McCree makes a low noise of satisfaction at the gesture, and Genji feels his arms wrap around him and hold him tight.


End file.
